Ramstein youth worker gets prison time for sexually abusing minor

A military child at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, was sexually abused by a DoD youth program worker en route to an area pool in 2016. Shown is the Waschmühle swimming pool in Kaiserslautern. (Courtesy photo)

A child and youth program assistant at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, has been sentenced to prison for abusive sexual contact with a minor in 2016.

Joseph Robertson, 38, a Defense Department employee from Sanford, North Carolina, pleaded guilty June 6 to one count of abusive sexual contact with a minor before U.S. District Court Judge Ronald B. Leighton of the Western District of Washington, according to a Justice Department news release. On Aug. 30, Leighton sentenced Robertson to two years in prison and five years of supervised release.

During the summer of 2016, while accompanying children from the Ramstein youth center to a swimming pool in a nearby town, Robertson engaged in abusive sexual contact with a minor who was 13-14 years old on multiple occasions, including touching the minor’s genitals over the minor’s clothing.

An investigation was conducted by he U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the FBI, led by the Seattle Division’s Tacoma Resident Agency Child Exploitation Task Force.

This case was prosecuted by Attorney Kaylynn Foulon of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Grady Leupold of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Washington.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.

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